Five-year-old calls police dispatcher, gets help for unconscious dad

Years of extensive training were put to the test recently during an 11-minute emergency call between a Rockwood, Mich., police dispatcher and a 5-year-old boy.

Cathy Krause, 46, has been a dispatcher with the Rockwood Police Department since 2001 and said that of all the calls she has received from children, more than 90 percent involved the kids playing on the telephone.

But when a call came in Jan. 16 from the little boy who said his dad was sick, there was something Krause’s trained ear heard in his voice that immediately let her know this was not playtime for the child.

It was for real.

“I’ve not had a call like this before,” Krause said as she spoke about the 911 call placed on the cellphone of the boy’s dad.

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“I asked him a ton of questions and he was so good,” she said. “He was a little upset in the beginning, but anything I asked him to do he did it.”

Krause asked the child to see if his dad was awake, and after checking, he returned to the phone saying his father was not answering him. That immediately let her know that the father was not conscious at the time.

The biggest obstacle the dispatcher faced was the fact that the youngster didn’t know his address, and because he was calling from a cellphone his location could not be pinpointed.

Krause was able to get the father’s name from the child, but could find no record of him in Rockwood.

Since he did not know his address, she asked him if he had a garage and told him to tell her the numbers on his garage.

He was able to give her the numbers and as she discussed what school he attends and different streets he mentioned the name “Groat,” which is between Huron River Drive and Woodruff Road.

She immediately recognized the name as a street in the south end of Brownstown Township.

“I already had a car leaving here” as she continued to talk to the child, Krause said.

Her questions took the boy’s mind off the fact that his dad was ill and everything Krause was asking him to do turned the exchange into a mission for him.

She told him to stand in the doorway and to go outside and wave to officers when he saw a police car.

Despite one of the numbers being wrong, officers were able to find the little boy and township paramedics attended to his father before transporting him to Oakwood Southshore Medical Center in Trenton.

According to Brownstown Fire Chief Jeff Drouillard, records show the man was able to speak by the time he was taken out of the house.

Drouillard said the child was left with a neighbor, but due to privacy laws he could give no information on the man’s condition.

While Krause is being lauded for the quick thinking that got help to the man within minutes, she is singing the little boy’s praises on the good job he did helping her.

“He was just amazing for a 5-year-old,” Krause said. “He stayed so calm. He was a great help to his father.”

There is one important question she always asks preschoolers and kindergartners when they visit the Police Department on tours: “Do you know your address?”

Krause said it is of the utmost importance for children to learn their addresses, as well as the first and last names of their mother and father.

When help arrived at the house, officers were able to reach the man’s wife because her emergency contact information was stored in her husband’s phone.

Krause admits it was a tense 11 minutes on the phone with the child.

She said she knew during all the years of schooling that the real test would come one day in the field, and she is proud of the fact she was prepared for it.

“I talk to a lot of adults and sometimes we get excited easily,” she said. “That was a good call. He is the hero of the day.”

Krause will be recognized publicly at an upcoming City Council meeting.